Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) apparently can’t help himself. He sat down with C-SPAN recently for an interview that they will air on Sunday. During the interview, he went back to criticizing former President Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair, just as he had done last month on Meet the Press. For some reason, Paul really thinks this is a good tactic to use to hammer both the extremely popular ex-President and his wife, presumptive 2016 Democratic Presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton.
Last month, Paul went with the line of reasoning that the Democrats are hypocrites for defending women’s rights while at the same time championing Bill Clinton. He said that President Clinton ‘took advantage of’ Lewinsky. That it wasn’t an affair. That, essentially, he preyed on a vulnerable woman. More or less, Rand Paul called Bill Clinton a sexual predator. He may as well just had the guts to call the President a rapist, for all of his insinuations.
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Fast forward to today, and Paul is playing the same game. Just like last month, he stated that Democrats cannot in good conscience say they are for women’s rights and have women’s best interests when they allow Bill Clinton to fundraise and speak for them. At the same time, he acts like he isn’t holding this against Hillary Clinton and that it doesn’t necessarily detract from a possible run at the White House. However, he also stated that it is hard to separate the two since they are married.
“Someone who takes advantage of a young girl in their office? I mean, really. And then (Democrats) have the gall to stand up and say, ‘Republicans are having a war on women’? Now, it’s not Hillary’s fault…but it is a factor in judging Bill Clinton in history.”
The Democratic National Committee quickly fired back at Paul for once again trying to invoke the Lewinsky scandal to somehow hammer away at Democrats for their positions on women’s rights. Lily Adams, the DNC’s Deputy Communications Director, had this to say on Friday:
“If his claims of concern for women are sincere he should start by rethinking his opposition to the Violence Against Women’s Act, paycheck fairness and the right of women to make their own health care decisions.”
Rand Paul is foolish if he thinks this is going to be a good strategy to attack Hillary Clinton with. One, Bill Clinton is still extremely popular, whether it is with women, moderates or independents. He doesn’t just appeal to hardcore Democrats. He is popular across the board, as he was back when Republicans tried to impeach him in 1998 and 1999. Bringing him into the fray is only going to be a loser for Paul. You don’t want to tangle with the Big Dog.
Second, it just highlights how lacking Rand Paul is of any legitimate policy ideas. He’d rather harp about a 15+ year old scandal that actually made the President and his wife come out looking better due to how much the GOP overplayed its hand. He knows he can’t discuss his own ideals or his party’s policy goals, because there are none. Somehow, he thinks calling Bill Clinton a sexual predator is going to wipe clean the complete disregard that Republicans have had for women, or at least put them on even ground with Democrats.
When you really break down what Paul is saying, you see a child’s argument. The argument of someone who thinks one thing negates everything else. Therefore, he is stating that Hillary Clinton can’t serve as President because of her husband’s transgressions and Democrats can’t be for women’s rights because Clinton fooled around while in office. By that logic, we can never trust Paul to be honest due to his recent plagiarizing issues. On top of that, it is apparent that Paul is a racist, since he knowingly employed an avowed pro-secessionist, white supremacist on his staff.
If Paul wants to play those games, he has to deal with the consequences as well. So I am sure he would fully admit that he is unfit to run for the White House. Right?
Justin Baragona is the Managing Editor at Politicus Sports as well as Senior Editor at PoliticusUSA. He was a political writer for 411Mania.com before joining PoliticusUSA. Politically, Justin considers himself a liberal but also a realist and pragmatist. Currently, Justin lives in St. Louis, MO and is married. Besides writing, he also runs his own business after spending a number of years in the corporate world. You can follow Justin on Twitter either with his personal handle (@justinbaragona) or the Sports site’s (@PoliticusSports).
